An Exercise Without Restraint
by meaninglessmonotony
Summary: Drabbles in the Supernatural universe. Rating and subject will, naturally, vary, so it's T for now. Most or all will involve Crowley.
1. Christmas Songs

**A/N: Crowley is my favorite so far, so I wanted to start with him. Again, I don't know much about _Supernatural_ canon other than what I've seen in a couple episodes and on Youtube, so any guidance would be much appreciated. :) Please r&r!**

He strode past the queue of tormented souls, humming cheerfully. There was always a swell of business around Christmastime—people's priorities got delightfully skewed and idealism was as virulent as Ebola. He loved it.

He checked his watch. Liam Sandberg, Canadian, thirty-four years old. Due in five minutes. Had wanted his sister's leukemia cured. Sandberg was a small fish; he sent a fresh-faced intern to collect.

Perks of power? Delegation. He rarely had to get his hands dirty these days, although he made a point to get involved every now and then just to show the ambitious and the upstarts why he was at the top of the food chain. Still, he straightened his black tie, a smirk of satisfaction curving his lips, he hadn't ruined a suit in months.

_Hm hm mm…_He scowled, trying to get that song out of his head. Infernal Christmas specials. He'd never understood how they'd gotten so popular. If he could just remember the words…the song had amused him once.

He checked his watch again. Three minutes until Loretta Jones joined his little flock. American, forty-eight. Had wanted her son to come back from the Middle Eastern country that the US had been fighting at the time. Four minutes, twenty-eight seconds until Aynn Dawes, Australian, thirty-two, left the child she'd wished for to a negligent husband forever.

Happy Christmas indeed.

He sighed and stopped walking, suddenly bored. _All work and no play…_Collection was a menial practice—the actual negotiation was the fun part. Persuasion was an art, as any good salesman could tell you. Convincing the customer to buy and sell was the modern hunt—he loved his job and was damn good at it—but game retrieval was a task for the dogs.

Names and numbers crowded his mind, clamoring in time with that damn song. Calls from above, petty complaints, passionate precursors to an eternity of regret, filtered through the dull morass of collection notifications like whispers of diamond dust through a flood of tar. Gratefully, he escaped, ascending to Earth.

"That's better," he sighed, exhaling a plume of heated breath. The bitter chill stung his cheeks, seeped into his host's marrow as he savored the night.

The stars were out. He peered up at the blue-black ceiling, at the white pinpricks that pierced it. A strange sort of remote beauty, they had. No stars in Hell.

He hunched his shoulders against a sudden wind and turned to his first summons.

_Hm hm mm hm mm mm hm hm…_ That song still wouldn't leave him alone.

He closed his eyes, making a concentrated effort to calm himself. Away, all the impending collection stress. Away, the worries about the Leviathans. Away, the adrenaline rush preceding a prospective deal.

Just…him.

After a few moments, he opened his eyes, grinning. There it was. Huh.

He crunched off through the thin layer of snow, singing under his breath.

"_If you sit on my lap today, a kiss a toy is the price you pay…"_


	2. An Audience with the King

"How long has it been, Meg?"

She didn't even try to struggle against her bonds. With him, there was no point, and he wouldn't hesitate to kill her even if she could escape. She glared at the demon smiling in front of her, hoping her hate would mask her fear.

He didn't need her to answer—he was happy enough to fill the room with his voice.

"Twenty? Thirty years? Of course, I don't count that little _incident_," he hissed out the word, all feigned amicability leaving him for an instant, wrath cloaking him like a shadow, before he resumed the charade. "No, I mean since we _really _talked."

She was in hell. Literally—Crowley's lackeys had snatched her from the surface only moments ago—and she didn't even know whether Leviathan had been defeated. Now, here she was, strapped to a damned table in the middle of this ridiculously lavish chamber, waiting for the King of Hell to shut up and kill her.

"How long is this going to take?" She shrugged her shoulders against the chest restraint, smiling brazenly up at him. "I really wanted to watch the world as we know it end."

"Oh, don't worry your pretty little head about that," he walked away from her table, voice deceptively soft. Meg knew him better than most—she knew he liked to play with his food. "Dick's dealt with."

Then the humans had succeeded. And Cas. Meg was relieved; those freaks would've stamped out every demon, vamp, and other denizen of the dark without regret, which meant that her agenda had briefly aligned with that of the two luckiest bastards in the world, and their pet birdbrain. Crowley'd thrown his lot in with them too, and apparently had seized his chance as soon as it became clear that the bigger threat was resolved.

"Well, give my regards to the Winchesters, then," she said easily.

He came back into view, smiling. The expression was full of a gloating cruelty. "I would, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait on the full complement. You see," he inspected a large knife, letting the light play on the blade. "The angry one, and your somewhat scattered boyfriend, as it happens, has gone tragically missing."

Missing? She didn't bother refuting his ludicrous reference to the angel, it was too stupid to bother with, but the news was…disturbing. "Where—" In a flash, she understood what must have happened. Purgatory. She shivered. What was it like there? Meg feared it, feared her death, and he saw it on her face.

"You'll join them soon enough," he promised, laying the edge of the knife against her cheek, eyes glowing with his victory. He'd sworn to kill her for what she'd done to him, and now he would.

Defiance swelled briefly in her breast, but she knew it would be pointless, and sagged in her restraints, closing her eyes as she felt the cold slide of the metal on her skin.

"Well that's disappointing," she felt the knife withdraw, heard disgust in his voice. "I was looking forward to breaking you, but it would seem as though you've already been tamed."

"Screw you, just do it," she snarled. His reputation as a torturer was well-earned. It would be better if he just killed her. Maybe if she could get him angry enough—he did have a temper. She summoned the little moisture she had in her mouth and spat at him, aiming for the stupid suit he was so proud of, and scoring a hit on the wide lapel.

"That's my Meg." He smirked, not even bothering to wipe it away, and leaned in close in a parody of confidentiality. "I've missed you. But if you try that again," his face twisted in hatred and his voice thickened, "I'll cut your bloody tongue out and feed it to my hellhound!"

Instinctively, she tried to bring her hands up in front of her, to shield her face from his anger, but was checked painfully by the thick leather bands.

He backed off, bouncing cheerfully on his heels. "Maybe we should take this slower. Remember that time in China? The panda?" He turned her wrist up, lacing his fingers in hers almost tenderly. "I've been back there since, but," he sighed, gripping her pinky and pulling it playfully off to the side, "it just wasn't the same." The demon winked at her, then wrenched her finger straight back, breaking it with an audible snap.

She hit her head against the table, biting her cheek to keep from howling, trying desperately not to give him the satisfaction of her pain.

"I—" her voice broke, and she swallowed, beginning again, keeping her tone level, careless. "I don't remember. I don't think there's anything worth remembering."

He shrugged and picked up the knife again.

Demons do not make friends. Demons do not love. But they do lust quite well, and will make temporary alliances to mutual advantages. Once upon a time, she had needed a crossroads demon, and they'd wrought disaster quite efficiently together, but she soon grew in strength, rising rapidly through the ranks of Lucifer's minions, until there was no point keeping ties to an underling. When his coup succeeded, she was back at the bottom of the scrap heap, and had taken a chance with the humans who'd defeated the devil, which, unfortunately, failed.

She'd only tried to do the same thing he had done, admittedly for reasons less sympathetic than self-preservation, but he hadn't seen it that way. She had stepped willingly into a pentacle, had voluntarily tortured a fellow demon, for a couple of lack-witted hunters and a naïve angel. Betrayal? Not really—she only wanted more power, but failure meant consequences.

Some consequences, she thought as the knife moved closer and his smile widened, weren't possible to live with.


End file.
